Would like opinions on my character formula

A friend said this was the place to go for my problem, so here goes.

I had a conversation with another friend of mine and a fellow writer, and the conversation steered into how we, personally, develop characters. When he read how I develop em, it would only bring out a part of who the characters are.

The story I am writing revolves around characters. If I cannot write good characters with this method, I am sunk. So I need opinions.

My process is this:

1. Figure out who they are subconciously. The character may or may not know this part of themselves, but it is their core. This is what remains even if an event strips or changes everything else about them (whether that be insanity, extreme joy, or even death is nearly irrelevant). This usually ends up with me assigning them a Most Important Person, whether that be an love interest or family member.

E.g. Bob loves his family, and always keeps them in mind. No matter what he goes through, whether it just be a desk job or fighting Eldritch horrors, he does it for the sake of his family.

2. Figure out who they are to themselves. Growing out of their subconcious core, this is their own honest opnion of who they are and what they've done.

E.g. Bob thinks of himself as an honest, hardworking man who wants the best for those that care about him. He worries that he may be neglecting his family or that his efforts are not good enough to support them, and he's terrified that he may lose them someday.

3. How they interact and appear to their closest friends.

E.g. Bob tries to appear as his hardworking, honest persona. However, since he's so often tired from working/fighting aliens, he often comes off as cold and distant to his wife and kids. In the moments where he genuinly tries to bond with them, it comes off as awkward because of his insecurity.

4. How they interact and appear to their not-so-close friends/aquaintances.

E.g. Bob puts off the same cold, distant aura at work, and his peers and friends know him as a effiecient and skilled worker/monster hunter. He can try be sociable at times, but stemming from his awkwardness with his family, he doesn't socialize often.

5. (Optional depending on their fame/reknown) How they appear to the masses. If they are famous people, they will likely have a reputation among the public. This is usually where I stuff all their powers and abilities, because that's the first thing most people will notice about them.

E.g. If Bob is a CEO, he may be known as the ruthless businessman who drive several competitors out of business. He may be known as shady or corrupt. If he is a particularly powerful fighter instead, he may be regarded with fear and slight awe wherever he goes. Any abilities could be whispered among the masses, and anyone who knows him could be regarded warily due to fear of retibution from Bob.

I chose this method because of how well it seemed to work for me, allowing me to create a dozen characters, all unique. But if this is a busted formula, I have a looot of rewriting to do.

What are the biggest problems with my character builder? Can it still work?

This isn't a bad formula at all, but it really might give you less than you may need. I'd consider adding writing exercises to the list. Non-canon side stories that reveal things like What You Are in the Dark, or the back-story, or just to where you have a feel for what a character would say and do in different situations.

Yours is good for a starting point, I think. You just need to go beyond the formula, in whatever way you'd like, so long as you do something that brings out more of the character in a less, well, formulaic way.

Maybe you're writing the alphabet for their personality, and you suddenly start getting gems that make your character...pop.

My basic point is to not stop at the formula. Use it, but also branch out and do creative side-activities to help you. You can find a bunch of ideas floating around the internet.

Okay, I tried to say this over in the CDT discussion thread, but I'll say it here instead now that this thread's here.

When it comes to methods, they're specific to the writer. It looks workable, albeit too broad and nebulous for my tastes, but that shouldn't matter to you at all because the only thing you need to concern yourself about when it comes to methods is whether they produce results that you're happy with. There is no right or wrong way to write- the reader isn't going to know how you did something, only if whatever it is is good.

So try your method out; that's the only way you'll know if it'll work. Does it work for you? Does it make characters that both satisfy you and engage your readers? If so, keep doing it! It's a good method for you.

Do you have trouble working with this method? Do you frequently hit walls while performing this method or produce characters that you aren't excited about and/or that your readers aren't engaged by? If so, try another method.

This is just the basic starting point for me. The actual stories and reactions co e from this skeleton. But if this is workable, then I'm very, very relieved. Thank you.

If it works for you, it works, and it doesn't really matter that your friend doesn't like it.

There is no One True Way to write.

I like it; especially that you can develop characters this way who have an incomplete or mistaken idea of their own motivations, which doesn't seem to come up usually that I've seen. :)

A generally good approach, but not the only one. In particular, I've found that discovering the "core" of the character often doesn't happen until some way into the writing process. With most if not all of the major characters I'm handling at the moment, the realization of what really makes them tick did not hit until well into the planning process; usually it's a sketch of their personality and their role first, and writing them somewhat as a reader might approach them: as strangers you're getting to know.

Oftentimes the realization is some tiny key part that clicks into place that in retrospect seems unbelievably obvious, but then again BLIFFOs don't happen only to engineers.

edited 7th Nov '14 7:26:43 PM by SabresEdge